Only 9 times in Federer's career...

...has he been aced 20 or more times in a match. And only ONE time over 30. In over 1000 matches. And he played tons of matches against players who routinely hit 20+ aces against others, but he shrinks them to Coria numbers sometimes. The latest victim, Isner, 4 aces?! This guy is insanely hard to ace.

Here, the list of the lucky ones who did it, except for that one who had 31 aces against him, let's see if anyone knows who it was

Please. And Agassi is notorious for getting aced alot; that's because his aggressive positioning and guessing gets him aced alot; however he makes it up by breaking alot when he gets his racquet on the ball.

Would {aces} + {Service winners} + [optionally, winner hit on Return of serve] against the returner be a better indication of success on ROS/as a returner? Of course, no such stats are probably available

Please. And Agassi is notorious for getting aced alot; that's because his aggressive positioning and guessing gets him aced alot; however he makes it up by breaking alot when he gets his racquet on the ball.

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Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.

Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.

Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.

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Needless to say, he needed shoulder surgery for that entire period. He played Wimbledon 2001 while his shoulder was literally falling off, and he had to take painkillers before and after every match. And yet, he managed to average 30 aces a match during the entire tournament.

Karlovic is an ACE master, and yet, he met Federer 11 times to only delivered 22 aces at best. I cannot see Goran would do any better than Karlovic.

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That's because you're not looking closely enough. Goran has twice broken the 200 aces barrier during a Wimbledon tournament (206 in 1992 and a record 213 in 2001). He also served 1,477 aces on the tour in 1996, and had the most aces of any player on tour in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2001.

Needless to say, he needed shoulder surgery for that entire period. He played Wimbledon 2001 while his shoulder was literally falling off, and he had to take painkillers before and after every match. And yet, he managed to average 30 aces a match during the entire tournament.

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And he still held off the surgery after winning Wimbledon, which in hindsight, was a mistake.

Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.

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Good thing Goran couldn't have been playing that bad because he faced Federer in the RO16 and QFs of the tournaments he encountered Federer in. So obviously he had to be good enough to string enough wins to be a good enough player to beat a rookie Federer who had almost no match experience, and was utterly prone to meltdowns.

Oh wait, he got utterly smashed. Federer owned a veteran Goran when Federer wasn't even good. In their 2001 match on carpet, I believe Goran was somewhere in the top 20s, so he wasn't exactly god awful. Federer was just not a good match-up for him.

Good thing Goran couldn't have been playing that bad because he faced Federer in the RO16 and QFs of the tournaments he encountered Federer in. So obviously he had to be good enough to string enough wins to be a good enough player to beat a rookie Federer who had almost no match experience, and was utterly prone to meltdowns.

Oh wait, he got utterly smashed. Federer owned a veteran Goran when Federer wasn't even good. In their 2001 match on carpet, I believe Goran was somewhere in the top 20s, so he wasn't exactly god awful. Federer was just not a good match-up for him.

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2001? He was in the top20s only because of his dreamy Wimby run. He was #125 before Wimby for a reason.

Good thing Goran couldn't have been playing that bad because he faced Federer in the RO16 and QFs of the tournaments he encountered Federer in. So obviously he had to be good enough to string enough wins to be a good enough player to beat a rookie Federer who had almost no match experience, and was utterly prone to meltdowns.

Oh wait, he got utterly smashed. Federer owned a veteran Goran when Federer wasn't even good. In their 2001 match on carpet, I believe Goran was somewhere in the top 20s, so he wasn't exactly god awful. Federer was just not a good match-up for him.

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At 2001 Milan, Goran was ranked 123 in the world when he lost to Federer (ranked 27). Goran had beaten 33rd ranked Nicolas Kiefer in the first round, a good win, and got a walkover in the next round.

One of Federer's great strength is getting the return in play so I'm not surprised by the stat. People are comparing Agassi to Federer in this way and pointing out that Agassi is inferior to Federer in this way, which is true. However the key stat to me is how often a player can break serve and while Agassi could be aced more than Federer he did break serve more often by percentage than Federer. That being written it is a very impression feat by Federer.

I would tend to think a Ken Rosewall in the past was very hard to ace also. Rosewall could get a lot of seemingly unreturnable serves into play.

And the worst at converting BPs. :lol:
1/17 in BP conversions against Nadal at FO 2007
1/12 in BP conversions against Nadal at Wimby 2008

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That is indeed appalling but hardly surprising,isn't it. Ralph's sliders/kickers give absolute FITS to Fed's BH on the AD side(where the BPs are usually played), always have. That's one thing he's improved on in their recent encounters.

Goran's flat, fast serves would be easier compared to Nadal's sliders for Fed on the BH side. Fed's extremely good at absorbing pace/redirecting.

Goran used the lefty wide serve more than Nadal. You all knew it was coming, yet there was nothing you could do about it. Imagine that thing coming at you at 120 mph, instead of 100 mph.

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Speed doesn't hurt Roger's BH return, it's the vicious kick that Ralph generates,which as far as I remember, Goran didn't(Goran was a flat server, given the conditions this is understandable). The interesting thing is that Fed performs better on Ralph's FS than second serve,that sums it up.

Speed doesn't hurt Roger's BH return, it's the vicious kick that Ralph generates,which as far as I remember, Goran didn't(Goran was a flat server, given the conditions this is understandable). The interesting thing is that Fed performs better on Ralph's FS than second serve,that sums it up.

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The only flat serves that Goran served were wide on the deuce sides (being a lefty, this caught everyone off guard). Everywhere else, his first serve was a topspin-slice. A extremely fast one, though, but very spinny. And his slice serve was a killer.

One of Federer's great strength is getting the return in play so I'm not surprised by the stat. People are comparing Agassi to Federer in this way and pointing out that Agassi is inferior to Federer in this way, which is true. However the key stat to me is how often a player can break serve and while Agassi could be aced more than Federer he did break serve more often by percentage than Federer. That being written it is a very impression feat by Federer.

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A much more useful stat would be aces received per match (or better yet, per point) not maximum number of aces in one match.

In general, I think most of these absolute stats are rather useless. For example, you look at the ranking by number of aces (career) and you see Roddick at number 3, and Karlovic at number 8. What does that tell you about acing ability? It tells you nothing because Roddick has played many more matches than Karlovic. But Karlovic hits about 18 aces per match on average, while Roddick hits about 11. That’s a HUGE difference. So of course Karlovic would have to be on top of any meaningful list about acing ability, instead of number 8. Such lists are very misleading.

I agree with you that the most relevant statistic for return has to be the percentage of return games won. The main mission of the returner is to neutralize the advantage of the server as soon as possible. If you can accomplish this by systematically hitting return winners or extremely aggressive returns, then so much better: You are not only neutralizing the server’s advantage, but turning it around to yourself. However, if you mix this up with enough errors that you end up winning a much lower percentage of return games than another player, then you may be better off cutting down on your attempts to hit winners off the return, and concentrating on just trying to put the ball back in play well enought so that it doesn’t allow the server to retain the initiative. it may sound less ambitious, but it would be a more effective way of returning if it brings up your perecentage of return games won. Agassi is near the top in percentage of return games won (5 full points higher than Federer, which is a lot) because he was a very effective returner in the sense I’ve just described (though of course he could also hit a good number of return winners). But I believe most returners would willingly give up their ability to hit winners off the return, in exchange for the ability to just put the point in neutral mode right after the return, and do it often enough to win a higher ratio of return games.

The only flat serves that Goran served were wide on the deuce sides (being a lefty, this caught everyone off guard). Everywhere else, his first serve was a topspin-slice. A extremely fast one, though, but very spinny. And his slice serve was a killer.

A much more useful stat would be aces received per match (or better yet, per point) not maximum number of aces in one match.

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absolutely
aces recieved per match stat could have been done from the atp, but for that kind of work someone should be payed
and 0 aces + 20 unret. serves is better for the server than 19 aces + 0 unret. serves